Impulse
by BlueRiverSteel
Summary: Tag to 10x19, The Werther Project. The day's events catch up to Sam, and Dean reacts true to form. Shameless angst/comfort.


**Impulse**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. Obviously.

**A/N:** Tag to 10x19, _The Werther Project_. Sam absorbs what nearly happened, and Dean's reaction to it. Shameless broment drabble.

* * *

Man, their lives were screwed up. Sam had known it for ages; the awareness of how different, how dysfunctional, how _bizarre_ their existence was had been with him since he was a teenager, really. Dean often referred to it as Sam's Early-Life Crisis, complete with angst and huffy sighs and eye rolls.

Dad hadn't known _what_ to do with him.

Now, nearly twenty years later, Sam met the realization of the insanity of it all with grim determination and a fifth of whiskey rather than petulance and rage; but it still did get to him sometimes. Like today.

"All right, don't get that wet tonight," Dean ordered as he finished, rubbing a warm hand over the fresh bandage covering a couple stitches in his forearm. The cut had been clean, but Sam had gone too deep when he sliced into his own arm the second time, trying to feed the Werther Box what it needed to open for him.

Trying to break the spell holding Dean, or so he'd thought.

"What about yours?" he asked, motioning to the bandana Dean still had wrapped around his forearm. His older brother, true to form, hadn't addressed his own injury yet; getting juice and a hearty meal into Sam the moment they arrived home, then meticulously cleaning and stitching him up before he let himself break out the whiskey.

Dean snorted into his glass. "I'll wrap it up later, but I'm not the idiot who nearly sliced his _palmarus longus _tendon in half."

That forced a surprised laugh out of Sam—he didn't know why, he shouldn't have been even a little surprised anymore when Dean let his intelligence show past the bad boy exterior he wore like armor. The corner of Dean's lips quirked up in a half-smile, victory in his eyes, and Sam knew that had been his brother's goal all along—to distract him, protect him, make him smile.

Some things never _did_ change.

"Let me," Sam said, reaching for Dean. His brother yanked his arm back, more confused than irritated, cocking an eyebrow.

"I got it."

"I know—"

"A freakin' paper cut. I can—"

"_I want to_." Sam didn't shout, didn't need to. Something in his tone got Dean's attention, and he froze. The brothers regarded one another silently for a moment, before Dean sat, settling into the leather chair and holding out his cotton-wrapped right arm.

"Okay, Sammy. Go ahead."

Dean was right, it was a clean, shallow cut that would require nothing more than disinfectant and a bandage. Sam had known it from the start, that this wasn't something Dean needed.

_He_ needed it. And, he suspected, Dean knew it too. Sam unwrapped the bandana slowly, carefully pulling the fabric free of the dried blood on Dean's arm.

_Today could have turned out so much differently._

The cut was three inches long, already beginning to heal. Ignoring the angry red raised flesh of the Mark above it, Sam soaked gauze in alcohol and pressed it over the laceration. Dean didn't even flinch, though Sam knew it had to sting.

_Thought I was helping. Thought Rowena was real, thought I was solving the case._

Slowly, he wiped at the cut, patting it dry with a clean gauze when he was satisfied it was clean. It had taken Sam a few moments after Dean punched him in the face (Sam wasn't even angry; he'd needed it) to realize that the witch had been Magnus' spell at work, inciting him to suicide-by-martyrdom in an attempt to save Dean.

_Slow_, Sam may have been rendered by his apparent obsession with rescuing his brother; but _stupid_ he was not. His death would not save Dean. It would destroy him.

_Nearly left him here to deal with this all alone._

Not the cut, Dean could've handled that on his own easily. Sam's gaze skittered up Dean's arm a few inches, this time resting on the inflamed scar nestled near Dean's inner elbow. He stared, clenched his jaw at the sudden bloom of near-panic that made his chest ache.

_Dean, grief-stricken and alone, trying to hold off against the Mark on his soul, and me hanging out up in heaven...yeah, sorry Dad, just slit my own wrists because I got the whammy put on me..._

"Sam?" Dean's voice cut through the ringing in his ears. He blinked, looked up, met green eyes, troubled.

"Huh?"

"It's bleedin', little brother."

Sure enough, the cleaning had scraped away what scab had begun to form, and blood was running a small trail down Dean's arm, toward the table. Sam cursed and swiped at the crimson gently—at his brother's blood, _his blood_—and hastily applied the large band aid, securing the sticky fabric to Dean's skin. He patted it once, like Dean had done to his, and sat back, wiping at the layer of sticky sweat that had formed on his brow at some point. Dean didn't move, just looked at him.

Sam squirmed under his brother's scrutiny.

"What, Dean?"

"It wasn't your fault."

Sam clenched his jaw, not wanting to go there. Dean had no idea.

"It was all me."

"It was all _Magnus_. Son of a bitch made a safe that couldn't be opened but for some poor bastard giving up enough blood to kill him. You were right about the solution, you just should've thought of coming to get me, is all."

"You were—"

"Under a whammy of my own, I know. I'm sorry."

Sam shook his head. Why did it always come back to that? Dean was always taking responsibility, apologizing, even for things that weren't his fault.

"You beat it," he said, a little awed now that he'd had time to think over what exactly had happened and how Magnus' spell worked. "You flat out _overcame_ what no one else has, including me." And then, because he had to know, he asked, "Why, Dean? It's never occurred to you, not once?"

He was frankly terrified of the answer, but sat still while Dean grinned a little.

"Actually I have, that's why I could say no. Right now the Mark would just bring me right back as something worse than even what I currently am—I'm not exactly in a normal situation, here, Sammy. So yeah, I could say no. Because I have to say no every day already. I get plenty of practice."

Sam stood, unable to sit still at the flurry of emotion that swamped him at that declaration. He knew Dean well enough to know that…_suicide_ (he shuddered to even think the word) had crossed his brother's mind as a possible solution to all this; but he carefully avoided thinking of it because he couldn't afford to live in a half-panicked fluster his entire life.

If it made him check on Dean several times a night _(and day)_ and stole away his restful dreams for nightmares, well…no one needed to know that.

Dean stood too, coming to him and gripping his shoulder tightly.

"Hey. I'm not going to do that, okay? Don't go there."

"No, it's not that," Sam's voice came out funny, a little more choked than he would have preferred.

"What, then?"

_God, Dean._

"What if_ I_ had succeeded?"

Dean looked momentarily confused, then gave Sam a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"I'd never allow it, Sam, don't you worry. As long as I'm around—"

Sam snorted, interrupting. Dean's smile turned self-deprecating, crinkling the skin around his eyes, and Sam ignored the sting in the vicinity of his chest as he realized Dean had done it on purpose, to bring him out of his own head.

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about, you dumbass," he grumbled. He looked up, holding Dean's gaze and narrowing his own so his brother would know he wasn't screwing around. "I won't leave you to do this on your own, Dean. We're in it together, and I'm not failing you again. Not this time."

Dean looked a little surprised at his vehemence, but softened a moment later.

"I'm serious," Sam said, before Dean could open his mouth and shatter the moment with some snarky-ass comment. "Magnus' spell couldn't _convince_ me to go through with it; had to resort to _tricking_ me into it. I'm not going anywhere, I want you to know that."

Dean, in a moment of complete impulse, pulled Sam against him.

"I know, Sammy."


End file.
